Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it's Skye Schooley here, a staff writer with Business.com, and today we'll be talking about effective workplace learning and development. Now, a lack of career development remains to be one of the top reasons why employees are quitting their jobs, so it only makes good business sense that you have some sort of learning plan in place for your workers. This is to not only help them learn and upskill, but also to help them see a path to career development within your organization. Today I'm joined by Jaron Schmidt, the Chief Experience Officer at Credly, to gain some insight on how you can make your workplace learning and development opportunities effective. Hi Jaron, thanks so much for being here today to talk with me about workplace learning and development. Why is it so important for employers to offer learning and development opportunities to employees? Honestly, I think the workforce

Speaker 2: has just shifted so much in the last two plus years right now that I think between skill gaps, working remote, and really wanting to kind of control your own destiny where you go, you need to have some sort of additional asset that you give to your employees as a benefit. We often talk about learning as a benefit here at Credly, and I think the reason for that is that people aren't necessarily seeing that same sort of upwards trajectory that they do within the corporate ladder perhaps, or don't have that same expectation of I become an individual contributor and then I manage people. Honestly, I think what we're seeing is that what someone needs to be effective within roles is shifting so quickly that learning and upskilling has become kind of the new thing that, you know, is not really placing but is augmenting kind of what

Speaker 1: upward mobility means for someone in their career. So is there kind of a standard learning and development plan that employers typically follow, and if so, is it effective in today's workplace?

Speaker 2: You know, I think the standard would be having one in place, and that's becoming more of the norm, but I wouldn't say that there's any one standard out there or approach to it, and that because that would be because of what industry you're in, or more importantly, what that employee's desire is. So this kind of goes back to some of the things I said earlier, which is, you know, learning is becoming one of the most sought-after benefits that employees are looking for, and so in order to get that right learning and development mix, what you have to do is understand what's important to the company, but then also what's important to the employee, and making sure that you can live up to or meet those standards as you roll out any sort of learning and development programs.

Speaker 1: Great, so I guess in addition to tailoring it to the employees and the company's needs, do you have any other sort of tips for how employers can enhance their learning and development

Speaker 2: opportunities? You know, there's the consumer-driven aspect of it, so I think what's important of this is that people aren't expecting to go into that compliance training and have, you know, the wonky user experience, and like you're asking them to maybe do something like watch a video and answer some questions. You got to make sure that they aren't getting stuck in sort of a technical issue, and that it's an enjoyable experience based on the fact that you're competing with things like YouTube that they interact with on a daily basis, right? And so I think first and foremost, it's about making sure that that user experience is there, and I think then the second item of it is making sure that they can understand or connect the dots to where that learning is going to benefit them within the workplace. So, you know, for the longest time, it was like, we have all this learning for you, why aren't you going after it? So because I could do that until my face turns blue, it doesn't mean that it's actually going to result in my career ambitions, or it's going to allow me to get to that next promotion or that next lateral move that I want to make, and so I think that's an important aspect of it. And then last but certainly not least, I mean, there's the idea of giving them that recognition, of making sure that as you invest in them, that they can go ahead and promote that out to the external world, that not only are they getting the benefit and the recognition from their social peers or their networks, that, you know, they are giving in, making an investment in upskilling, but also that people can see that that's like reflective of working at that organization, and that also will then draw talent to your organization.

Speaker 1: Awesome. So I guess moving forward, if an employer doesn't already have a learning and development plan in place for some reason, do you have advice for how they can go about

Speaker 2: starting one? You know, there's like the kind of the easy answer on that one, which is what skills do we have at our organization, what skills do we want, and how is the labor market shifting, and like that's the easy thing to say, a really, really hard thing to do, and so what I would say is look at trying to tie it out to kind of what I said earlier, which is making sure that that'll have a meaningful impact on the individual and the company. So start with some of those business goals that you have in the short to mid-term. Are there things that you have around your culture of data or storytelling or presentations, and can you actually tie, if you were to train someone in those, how that would actually benefit the organization and ultimately their career? So I think there's like the standard answer, which is look at what skills you have and find the gaps, right? Like that's not as, it's easier said than done, but if you can actually say, if people within this sort of role start building out a broader understanding of data and how to visualize data, here are the type of opportunities that we can award them with. I think that's going to totally change the dynamic and the incentive structure for the employee. So that was pretty much all that

Speaker 1: we had for today, but before we wrap up, do you have any final advice for employers on learning

Speaker 2: and development opportunities in general? I would say just don't underestimate how important that is to the workforce right now. I mean, obviously it's important to the organization, right? You want people that are constantly upskilling and reskilling. There's that joke that we often tell when they say, well, if I train them, what happens? Like they might leave, and it's like, well, what if you don't train them and they stick around? Like that's almost worse, right? And so I guess my advice is make sure you have some sort of learning and development program in place and that you're really championing that with your employees in a way that helps them understand or appreciate how it's going to benefit them long-term. Awesome. Well, that was all that

Speaker 1: we had for today, Jaron. Thank you so much. Thank you.